June 04, 2003

PORPHYROGENITUS LOOKS AT DISTORTED MISQUOTES IN THE MEDIA:

You know, we've had three or four of this type of thing in rapid-fire succession over a period of little over a week (scroll to "The NYT Against Ashcroft"), massive, willful distortions of what people said, printed in (supposedly) reputable newspapers. . . .

Look, I'm not one of those people who goes on and on about the superiority of blogs and all that. But I am starting to wonder just how much of what we were told in the Newspapers of Record just wasn't so. Actually, I'm wondering less and less: the answer is this isn't very new. People are just more aware of it now, and the Real Reporters© find this turn of events unbecoming. I mean, don't we know that they're just doing their jobs as reporters, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable? If that means twisting what someone says to make them and their supporters uncomfortable and confirm for the afflicted (say, the anti-war left) what they always "knew", then. . .

. . .That's The Way It Is.

Indeed. Meanwhile Jay Caruso notes that the Wolfowitz misquote is being merrily spread around.

As evidence of the true brutality of Saddam's regime comes out, the efforts to seize the moral high ground somehow, anyhow by those who opposed the war are growing more and more desperate.

UPDATE: Bill Hobbs has more.